


The Things You Dread

by fynndin



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie) Spoilers, Clint Barton's Farm, Gap Filler, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 09:12:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,484
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4429670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fynndin/pseuds/fynndin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Some nightmares you can't just shrug off. When he's not thinking on his feet, Steve can be surprisingly empathic and caring. And when caught during the wrong (or right?) moment, Tony may even realize that he could use support.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Things You Dread

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place during Age of Ultron when the Avengers are sleeping at Clint's farm. It's just another take on the "what if Steve and Tony had to share a room"-idea. No slash to be found here, but a lot of delicious angst and comfort.
> 
> This one is for my favourite squiggle, who also kind of betad it. Kind of ;)
> 
> I guess the tags already say it, but just to be sure: AoU spoilers ahead!
> 
> And sorry for the title. It's kinda lame, but I'm not good at making up titles.

Tony tried to get his thoughts back together. He was not in a dark, moist cave. There was not a pile of his dying friends in front of him. He was simply tangled into sweat damp sheets and... where again? Right. Barton's house. He was at Barton's farm and everything was peachy. Slowly he freed his limbs from the sheets and caught his breath. He rubbed his hands over his face and pressed on his eyes. 'Breathe', he thought. Everything was good. Nobody was dead so far and the end of the world had not come yet.

He stood up and walked a few steps, when he caught a glimpse at the bed at the other end of the room. Steve. There he was, a black shadow in a dark room. He was lying on his back, Tony slowly figured out. He was also completely still.

Tony felt worries creeping back up on him and huffed them away, berating himself: 'The guy's sleeping. Not everyone pulls a wrestling match against their blanket in their sleep.' It was ridiculous, but somehow he couldn't shake off the horror of that vision. Dream. It was a dream, not a vision. Steve, dying under his hand. He snapped back into the present but couldn't push it away entirely. 'But what if', he mused, 'What if he is in danger? What if he's about to die? If I find out now, I might save - wow, would you listen to yourself? People don't just die like that during the best of their days. Even less so super soldiers.'

He threw these thoughts back and forth and realized that he wouldn't be able to rest before acting on this. After telling himself once more that this was ridiculous and being thrown back to the sound of Steve's cracked voice and the accusation in his eyes he stepped to the bed, slightly shaking. What was he doing here again? This was beyond weird. But he'd get no sleep and Steve was still lying there, motionless as a brick. That couldn't be normal. Checking on vitals was totally appropriate at that point or at least understandable. A trembling hand went up to Steve's jaw. 

'Wait', he stopped himself, 'If Steve is only sleeping - which is totally the case - he might just freak out from me, touching his face without warning. I could wake him. Or I hope that he just sleeps through it and never finds out about this.' He started gnawing on his lower lip in concentration.

His hand went lower to grab one of Steve's wrists. He pressed a finger to the pulse point. When he was almost sure to have a pulse he vaguely remembered something from first aid classes. With some fingers you would also feel your own pulse. The thumb, right? Or was it the index finger? He tried both. There was something, was there? He pressed different spots and altered the amount of pressure. After several attempts of more and more shaky fumbling he was 100% certain that he knew just as much as before.

This was bad. Tony could not find a pulse or at least none that couldn't be just as well his own. He gave himself a moment to think. 'Tony, get it together. Feeling pulse on the wrist can go wrong. I would probably find one if I felt on his neck. Which I won't. Don't freak out! What else? Breath. Right. He should be breathing.' He rumbled through his memory. Cheek close to the mouth to feel the air streaming in and out and eyes at the chest to see the rise and fall. That was it. That sounded fool proof. He lowered his head over Steve's mouth. He couldn't see all that much in the darkness, so he'd wait for air streaming over his cheek.

Nothing happened. For how long? He had completely forgotten to count seconds. He couldn't estimate seconds right now, but this was getting long and why was nothing happening? 'I'm not too stupid to check for breathing, am I?', he asked himself. His own breath came out shaky and rough. Maybe he was distracting himself too much. He stopped breathing to pay more attention. Still nothing. For how long? Too long? Was that a breath or just his hair moving?

~~~~~

Being the light sleeper he was Steve was not surprised that he had woken up when Tony had started rustling with his sheets and padded through the room. He had also paid it no second thoughts. From his files Tony had more than enough reasons to suffer from nightmares and PTSD didn't help with sleep either. Steve even had contemplated offering consolation, but had opted against it. They really weren't that close and Tony tended to close up on himself when he was troubled.

Steve had briefly considered to show that he was awake, simply to avoid any false idea of privacy on Tony's side, but he had already been dozing off again, when he almost started as Tony had stepped up to his bed and grabbed his wrist. Steve frowned and wanted to say something. He just didn't know what. He interrupted that train of thought and tried to find out, what Tony was doing.

Tony kept fumbling at the wrist and it made less and less sense. At first it felt almost like checking a pulse but then Tony started tracing the... sinew? Pressing at random spots? Sometimes just tracing lightly over the skin? Steve tried desperately to come up with an appropriate reaction but he wasn't even sure what to react to.

When something soft brushed his chin, Steve's eyes snapped open. That was definitely the back of Tony's head right in front of his nose and a few stray strands of hair brushing his face. His whole body locked in place, he held his breath and waited. After a few moments he established to himself that there didn't seem to be anything dangerous going on. After another few moments he agreed with himself that it also didn't look as if it would end any time soon. And it didn't make any sense.

Since this wasn't getting any less confusing, he decided to finally speak up. He whispered: "The fuck, man?"

Then he nearly had a heart attack. Tony leaped away from the bed and shrieked. On his back on all fours the man panted and stared at Steve with wide eyes. For several long seconds panting and staring at each other seemed to fully occupy all of their mental capacities. Eventually Tony found his tongue again.

"Don't do that again. Not ever. That probably just cost me a few years of life time."

Steve couldn't help it. A few huffed laughs of relief blurted out of him. When he realized that Tony might think he was laughing at him, he said: "Sorry, Tony, but what in all seven hells was that?"

~~~~~

Tony was still thinking about an excuse, when he heard himself ramble: "You looked so motionless and for a moment I was worried that you were dead, so I tried to check your vitals." He scratched his head. Great job, brain. Verbal filters would be quite an investment. "Wow. When spoken out loud, that sounds really stupid." He paused and silently wished to be struck by lightning or something. "I guess I'll just get back to bed. Sorry for waking you up and scaring the living shit out of both of us. Let's just never bring this up again", he grumbled and slumped back into his bed. He turned his back to Steve and pulled the cover up to his nose.

'God fucking damnit, what was that about?', Tony thought. Granted, he had been on better terms with Steve recently and lying would certainly not help things to stay that way, but he didn't have to roll out all his stupid anxieties and fears in front of him. After all, he wanted to be friends with Steve and to get there he'd had to impress him, to show him that Tony Stark was not just a charming talker. Well, right now Tony Stark was more of a scared, weird mess and Steve was probably working hard to not burst with laughter.

"If you say so, I won't", Steve said and brought the train of thought to a sudden stop.

Tony blinked in confusion. "Won't... what?", he asked.

"Bring it up", Steve answered. "If you say so, I won't bring this up ever again."

He didn't sound like he had been laughing, you had to give him that and for a moment that thought kept Tony from trying to sink into his mattress. Then his mind went back to the vision and his nightmare and without thinking he wrapped himself up in his cover. For Steve the matter seemed to be settled. Nothing more to say. Silence drowned Tony and made way for all the impressions to come back. Darkness. Dampness. The shield - broken. Even the Hulk had been a motionless heap. He needed to hear something. To say something. If he fell asleep, he'd fall right back into that cave. "That was my vision", he blurted.

"I'm sorry, what was that?", Steve asked.

Before he could make up some bullshit excuse to stop talking, Tony pulled his face out of the pillow and said: "That was my vision. All of you dying. All of the Avengers. And it was all my fault. You said that."

There was silence aside from the rustling of sheets and the squeaking of the mattress as Steve shifted in his bed. "What did I say?", he asked with a mixture of concern and confusion.

Tony swallowed. If he just stopped talking now, he could probably get out of this. Steve wouldn't ask. Most likely at least. But if he was completely honest, speaking it out loud made it better. It chased the ghosts away and right now he didn't care who listened, so he proceeded: "You said I could have done more. In the vision, that is. I thought you were dead, hell I thought everyone was dead, but when I checked your pulse, you looked at me with that broken, unfocused gaze and said: 'You could have saved us.'"

He would not cry. If there was anything Tony's father had taught him, than it was how to hold back tears. Only now it didn't seem to work. His voice was still steady and he wasn't sobbing but somehow there was water running down his nose and slowly dripping onto the pillow. "Everything was wrecked. Everyone was dead or dying. And I could have prevented it."

There was silence again, but this time it was less suffocating. It still felt uncomfortable. For probably the first time in many years, keeping on talking seemed to be insufferably exhausting, so Tony stayed quiet. He chewed on his lip and tried to blink away the moisture in his eyes. Next to him the mattress dipped and a hand closed around his shoulder. Tony turned his head apruptly and he looked back, vaguely to Steve but it was still dark. All tears were gone. "Sorry, I shouldn't... I probably shouldn't have said that.", Tony mumbled. "Won't bother you with this again. I'll deal with it myself."

"No", Steve said with a weird soft determination in his voice, "You shouldn't feel sorry and you don't have to deal with it yourself. We're not just a team when we have to beat the bad guys up." A long silence followed and Steve's hand slowly turned from an alien touch into a comforting, warm weight that kept Tony's thoughts on the ground. His mind tried to wander, flashed back to a cold neck in his hand and a broken gaze, but every time Steve's thumb rubbed a slow, firm circle into his shoulder and pulled him back.

After what could have been an eternity, Steve stroked down his arm and said: "I guess you want to get some more sleep. I'll just head over back to my bed, ok?"

The mattress squeaked when Steve got up and Tony was not sure whether he wished for the whispered "No" to drown in the noise. It didn't. Steve stopped dead in his tracks.

"Sorry, what'd you say?", he asked.

Tony gulped. "I... I'm not sure if I'm ok. Guess I'll manage. Thanks."

He listened to the steps padding back through the room and the rustling sheets. More steps and then silence. Tony looked back over his shoulder and there was Steve's silhouette next to his bed, blanket and pillow in his hands. "Would you be more ok", Steve began gingerly, "if I slept next to you?"

Tony needed a moment to process the question. "Calm it, Capsicle", he snapped. "Just because I can't simply suck it up doesn't mean I'm a princess and need to be pampered." It was meant to sound casual, maybe even mean but listening to himself he had to admit it sounded rather pathetic.

"If you were a princess", Steve mused, "I'd be far more worried what happened if someone found me in your bed." He dropped his pillow next to Tony. "Here's the deal: Tell me to go at any given time and I'll be back in my bed in a blink. Until then..." Tony felt Steve stretch out on the bed next to him. "I'll just be here, not pampering you, but offering two open ears if you want to talk. And I could offer an open arm, if you want one."

Tony took a deep breath to make a snarky comment, but Steve cut him off: "Before you say anything sexist or try to degrade anyone for showing emotions: It's ok, Tony. You're judging yourself so harshly, you don't need my help with that part. I'm... here. Alive, breathing and I assure you that for today you have done enough. And just in case that you'd feel better if you could hold onto someone, I'm also ok with being... someone."

For a second Tony felt anger welling up in his chest only to realize that he saw absolutely nothing to be angry about. Except maybe himself. There was plenty to be angry about there, but Steve was probably right. Someone who listened and someone close by would help. Whatever had repelled him, it slowly dissolved into thin air. Instead there was Steve with his right arm lazily draped on the pillow next to Tony's head. 

Tony turned around and lifted his head. Just as he had hoped that was all it took to make Steve slip his arm underneath. He tentatively put his arm around Steve's waist and almost started when Steve pulled him closer. He fought a short battle with himself about being weak and whimsy. 'Stark Men are made of iron', his subconscious provided. 'Fuck off', he told it. 'Not being made of iron feels good sometimes.'

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I hope you liked it.
> 
> If you did or also if there's something you want to criticize, feel free to leave a comment.  
> Also pointing out mistakes or things that are hard to understand is totally ok, since English is not my first language and I probably read over it a hundred times and didn't notice...


End file.
